Trivia game

ABSTRACT

A trivia game has cards upon which are imprinted: A) the standard designation indicia of standard playing cards; and, B) trivia questions and answers. Players compete to achieve the best Poker hands. During a player&#39;s turn a card&#39;s question is read to the player. If the player correctly answers the question he/she: A) may discard the card or keep the card and discard any other single card in his/her hand; or, B) may keep the card without discarding any card; and, D) is awarded another consecutive turn, unless the kept card is the player&#39;s fifth card. If the player fails to correctly answer the question he/she must add the card to his/her hand and his/her turn is over. When a player has five cards he/she has no further turns in the round. The first player to win a certain number of rounds wins the game.

Applicant claims benefit of prior provisional application 60/903,666 Feb. 7, 2007

1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to games, and more specifically to a game in which game cards imprinted both with the standard designation indicia of standard playing cards and with trivia questions and answers are employed to implement the rules of the game.

2. DESCRIPTION OF PRIOR ART

Basic home trivia games, once extremely popular, have been greatly outpaced by extremely successful televised trivia games which incorporate elements of risk and strategy providing their players a more interesting goal than merely advancing pieces around a board. The home versions of these games have not been nearly as successful due in part to the fact that they have a lot of parts which the players must contend with and which, rather than enhance the games, break up the flow of the games. In the televised versions of these games, unlike the home versions, everything is automated so the players need not be distracted from the cerebral challenges the games provide. These and other contemporary home trivia games which incorporate risk and strategy, to some degree of success, merely synthesize other games, necessitate many parts, and lack playability. There is a need for a novel home trivia game which smoothly and with a minimum of parts incorporates the entertaining elements of risk and strategy.

3. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a game wherein players compete to achieve the best Poker hand by winning game cards for their hands by answering the trivia questions imprinted, along with the answers, on the game cards. The game cards are imprinted with the standard indicia or identifying letters and numbers 2 through 10, J, Q, K, A, and symbols ‘Diamonds’, ‘Clubs’, ‘Hearts and ‘Spades’ of standard playing cards, in addition to the trivia questions and answers.

4. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A fuller understanding of the nature and objects of the present invention will become apparent upon consideration of the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a top plan view of the front side of a non-face-card type game card, and

FIG. 2 is a top plan view of the front side of a face-card type game card.

FIG. 1 shows a non-face-card type game card 10 upon which is imprinted the standard designation indicia, or markings, or pips 18 and identifying numbers 16 a, of a standard non-face-card type playing card, specifically, and for illustrative purposes, the indicia, or markings of the ‘Two of Clubs’. The markings, or pips 18 represent the game card 10's suit and value. The marking 16 a represents the game card 10's identifying number designation. The game card's trivia question and answer 24 are shown.

FIG. 2 shows a face-card type game card 12 upon which is imprinted the standard designation indicia, or markings, or pips 18 and identifying letters 16 b, of a standard face-card type playing card, specifically, and for illustrative purposes, the indicia, or markings of the ‘King of Hearts’. The markings, or pips 18 represent the game card 12's suit, and the marking 16 b represents the game card 10's identifying letter designation and rank or value. The game card's trivia question and answer 24 are shown. FIG. 2 shows an illustration 14 of a ‘King’ as is commonly part of the standard designation indicia of a standard face-card type playing card; said illustration 14 being that of a ‘Queen’ or a ‘Jack’ on the two other face-card type playing cards which are not shown. It will be clear to one skilled in the art that the illustration of the two game cards 10, 12 is sufficient to express the composition of the remaining game cards of the decks.

5. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

It is a an object of this invention to provide an entertaining and challenging question and answer trivia game through the juxtaposition of the standard indicia of standard playing cards, and trivia questions and answers all being imprinted together upon game cards, whereby a trivia game may be played with the game cards alone.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a trivia game comprising one multi-faceted physical element, that element being the set of decks of game cards, to which end the set of game cards also contains ‘wild’ cards, or ‘Jokers’, which ‘Jokers’, aside from serving as ‘wild’ cards by representing any card of a deck, serve as tokens to keep track of rounds won.

Referring now to the drawings, in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 there are shown the first sides, or fronts, of two game cards 10, 12. The game cards are two of a set of game cards having a first side, or front, and a second side, or back. Only the fronts of the game cards are shown as the composition of backs of the game cards is easily understood without the need for illustration by drawing. The backs of all the game cards have a common design and are visually homogenous having no indicia and giving no indication of the information on the fronts of the game cards. The backs of the game cards may be imprinted with the name of the game.

The standard indicia of cards of decks of standard playing cards, and a trivia question and corresponding answer, are all imprinted upon the front side of the game cards.

In one embodiment of the invention the set of game cards is a set of decks of 52 game cards, which decks may additionally include 0-4 ‘jokers’ or ‘wild’ cards. ‘Jokers’ are not shown in the drawings as their composition is easily understood without the need for illustration by drawing. The word “Joker”, the letter “J” and a suitable illustration of a jester are imprinted on the front of the ‘Jokers’. ‘Jokers’ do not bear trivia questions.

In one embodiment of the invention the trivia questions are not imprinted upon the game cards, but standard playing cards are won by correctly answering trivia questions stored remotely.

Rules:

Cutting the Game Cards/Determining the First Dealer

A deck of game cards and a deck of ‘Jokers’ are opened; the deck of game cards is placed back-side-up, and the deck of ‘Jokers’ is placed front-side-up on a table. One ‘Joker’ is given to each player. Each player takes a small stack of cards from the deck of game cards and places the ‘Joker’ they were given, face down, beneath their small stack of cards without looking at the front of the cards so as to obscure the trivia questions and answers. The players then turn over their small stacks of game cards and slide the ‘Jokers’ back just enough to expose only the game card's designation, value and suit to themselves and the other players keeping the game card's trivia question and answers covered. The player with the highest ranked card will be the first dealer. The players return the small stacks of cards to the deck of game cards in a different order than they picked them up, leaving the ‘Jokers’ in the deck.

Sequence of Play:

During a player's turn a game card is drawn for and the game card's question is read to, the player. Turns begin with the player to the dealer's left and progress in a clockwise direction.

Winning or Loosing Game Cards—The First Game Card:

In a player's first turn in a round, a game card is drawn for and the game card's question is read to, the player. If the player fails to correctly answer the game card's trivia question the game card is added to the player's Poker hand—‘hand’ hereinafter—, the player's turn is over and the next player's turn begins. If the player correctly answers the game card's trivia question the game card is added to the player's hand and the player is awarded another turn.

Winning or Loosing Game Cards—The Subsequent Game Cards:

Once a player has his/her first game card in his/her hand, if the player correctly answers the game card's trivia question, drawn for and read to the player during his/her turn, he/she: A) may discard the card or keep the card and discard any other single card in his/her hand; or, B) may keep the card without discarding any card; and, C) is awarded another consecutive turn, unless the kept game card is the player's fifth game card in which case the player's hand is completed and he/she has no further turns in the round. If the player fails to correctly answer the game card's trivia question the game card is added to the player's hand, the player's turn is over and the next player's turn begins.

Jokers:

If a ‘Joker’ is drawn during a player's turn the ‘Joker’ is awarded to the player automatically. He/she may treat the ‘Joker’ as a game card he/she has won and the player is awarded another turn, again as though the ‘Joker’ were a game card won.

Winning a Round:

Once a player has five game cards in his/her hand he/she has no further turns in the round, and the player is passed over. Once all players have five game cards in their hands the round is over and the player with the best or highest ranked hand wins the round and is awarded a ‘Joker’ from the deck of ‘Jokers’ to keep track of the win.

Winning the Game:

The first player to win a pre-determined number of rounds, or ‘Jokers’, wins the game.

Since certain changes may be made in the foregoing disclosure without departing from the scope of the invention herein involved, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description and depicted in the accompanying drawings be construed in an illustrative and not in a limiting sense. 

I claim:
 1. A trivia game comprising game cards, said game cards having imprinted thereon: A) the standard indicia—the letters, and numbers 2 through 10, J, Q, K, A, and symbols ‘Diamonds’, ‘Clubs’, ‘Hearts’ and ‘Spades’,—of standard playing cards; and, B) trivia questions and corresponding answers.
 2. The trivia game according to claim 1, wherein by correctly answering the trivia questions imprinted on the game cards the players can win the game cards and use the won game cards to play a card game.
 3. The trivia game according to claim 1, wherein by correctly answering the trivia questions imprinted on the game cards the players can win the game cards and use the won game cards to develop a Poker hand.
 4. The trivia game according to claim 1, wherein the game cards comprise a set of decks of game cards, the decks of game cards each comprising fifty two (52) game cards, the standard identifying letters, and numbers 2 through 10, J, Q, K, A, and symbols ‘Diamonds’, ‘Clubs’, ‘Hearts’ and ‘Spades’ of standard playing cards being imprinted upon the game cards and being distributed such as they are on standard playing cards.
 5. The trivia game according to claim 4, wherein the decks of game cards each comprise 2-4 ‘wild’ cards or ‘Jokers’ in addition to the fifty two (52) game cards.
 6. The trivia game according to claim 1, including a second type of game card, a ‘wild’ card or ‘Joker’, which ‘wild’ card can represent any card of a deck and can be used as a token to keep track of rounds won.
 7. The trivia game according to claim 6, including the incorporation of an entire deck, 52 or more cards, of ‘Jokers’
 8. A process of playing a trivia game using either standard playing cards or the game cards of claim 1 comprising: 1) during a player's turn, reading a trivia question to the player; if the player correctly answers the question, awarding him/her a game card and the option of: A) discarding the game card or keeping the game card and discarding any other single game card in his/her hand; or, B) keeping the game card without discarding any game card; and, C) awarding the player another consecutive turn, unless the kept game card is the player's fifth game card; and further comprising: if the player fails to correctly answer the question adding the game card to his/her hand and ending his/her turn; and further comprising, any player having five game cards in his/her hand having no further turns in the round; the player with the best Poker hand at the end of each round winning the round; and, the first player to win a certain number of rounds winning the game. 